“Game in the classics” of Cortázar in brief
The work precedes the author’s instruction about the possible double reading of his work: one option is a sequential reading of fifty-six chapters forming the first two parts of the novel, ignoring the third, combining the “optional chapters”; another option is a whimsical order of movement according to the chapters in accordance with the table compiled by the writer.
The action takes place in the 1950s.
Horacio Oliveira, a forty-year-old Argentine without certain occupations, lives in Paris very modestly with money, occasionally sent from Buenos Aires by rich relatives. His favorite occupation is aimlessly wandering around the city. Horacio has already come here for a long time, following the example of his compatriots, who are supposed to go to Paris, as they say, for the upbringing of feelings. Immersed in himself, incessantly analyzing his thoughts, experiences, actions, he is convinced of his “otherness” and deliberately opposes himself
Horacio has a company of friends, including artists Etienne and Perico, writers Wong, Guy Mono, Osip Gregorovius, musician Ronald, ceramist Baps. They call their intellectual community the Snake Club and gather weekly in the attic of Ronald and Baps in the Latin Quarter, where they smoke, drink, listen to jazz from old, played records with the light of green candles. They spend hours talking about painting, literature, philosophy, habitually dive, and their communication is more like a conversation of friends than a conversation of snobs. The study of the archive of the old, dying writer Morelli, who once conceived the book, and remained in the form of scattered records, provides ample material for discussing the modern manner of writing, avant-garde literature, which in its very essence is incitement, debunking and ridicule. The magician feels serenely and insignificant beside such clever men, glittering fanfarons of speech. But even with these people close in spirit and way of thinking, Horacio sometimes is painful, he does not feel a deep affection for those with whom “by pure chance crossed in time and space.”
When Rocamadour falls ill and Maga has to take the baby and take care of him, Horacio can not overcome the annoyance and irritation. The child’s death leaves him indifferent. Friends who have built a kind of court of honor can not forgive Horacio nor his “elimination” in the difficult moment for Magi, nor the insensitivity shown to him in this situation. The magician leaves, and Horacio only now realizes that he loved this girl and, having lost her, lost his vital core. He turns out to be really alone and, after getting out of the already familiar circle, is looking for “brotherhood” in a society of vagabonds, but gets into the police and is sentenced to deportation from the country.
And now, many years after leaving his homeland, Oracio again finds himself in Buenos Aires. He drags vegetation in a hotel room and condescendingly tolerates the touching philistine care of Hekrepten. He maintains close contact with a friend of his youth Treveler and his wife Talita, working in the circus. Horacio is pleased with their society, but always experiencing a mania of spiritual conquests, this time seriously fears “to sow doubts and disturb the peace of good people.” Talita something reminds him of the Magician, and he unwittingly reaches out to her. Treveler is somewhat concerned, noticing this, but he values friendship with Horacio, in conversations with whom he finds an outlet after he has suffered for a long time from the lack of intellectual communication. And yet Horacio almost did not break in passing the happy love of friends.
The owner of the circus of Ferraguto buys a psychiatric clinic, and all three are assigned to work there. In an unaccustomed situation, they initially have a hard time, and Horacio increasingly has strangeness in the psyche, he is tormented by repentance, more and more comes the belief that the Magician died through his fault. Convincing himself that Treveler out of jealousy intends to deal with him, Horacio threatens to throw himself out of the window onto the slabs of a paved courtyard. The confidence tone and correct behavior of Treveler makes him postpone his plans. Locked alone in the ward and looking out the window, Horacio thinks about the possible exit: “A terribly sweet moment, when it’s best to just bend down and let yourself go – bang! And the end!” But down there are loving, sympathetic, worried, anxious for him Traveler and Talita.
The finale of the novel remains open. Whether Horacio made his last step into emptiness or changed his mind – this is to be decided by the reader. The alternation of episodes when Horacio, after an unrealized intention to settle scores with life, is again at home, can simply be a deathbed vision. And yet it seems that, sensing the reliable authenticity of human relations, Horacio will agree that “the only possible way to get away from the territory is to get into it at the very top”.
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